ABOUT THE CHALLENGE
Hewlett Challenge Q&A
What is the Hewlett Foundation Endowed Chair Challenge? The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has made a landmark $110-million challenge gift to endow 100 new faculty chairs at UC Berkeley. The gift will decisively bolster Berkeley’s efforts to retain and recruit top faculty — the heart of the University’s excellence. The Hewlett Challenge will match 80 gifts of $1 million to endow 80 new $2-million faculty chairs, each to be located in one of the campus’s 14 schools or colleges. It will also match 20 gifts of $1.5 million to endow 20 new $3-million distinguished endowed chairs, which will span multiple academic areas, under the Chancellor’s leadership. In all, the Challenge will bring a total of $220 million to reinforce faculty excellence across the campus.
What is the significance of the Hewlett Challenge? Beyond making a very substantial contribution to the preeminence of UC Berkeley, the Hewlett Challenge will have two far-reaching impacts for the campus. First, it will create an innovative public-private partnership to leverage higher levels of philanthropic support from the University’s alumni, faculty, parents, and friends. Second, it will help Berkeley build a stable and growing funding base to retain and attract top faculty, thus ensuring its commitment to comprehensive academic excellence far into the future. The Challenge will raise $220 million in new funding for faculty chairs, an almost 50 percent increase over the current $468 million in endowed chair funding as of FY 2006.
On the national level, the Hewlett Challenge will make an important contribution to the vitality of public higher education, and show other public institutions that such partnerships can succeed in keeping excellence in the public domain.
Why are endowed chairs so critical to preserving the preeminence of our faculty — and the University? In the past two decades, Berkeley’s State funding — which represents about one-third of the campus’s annual budget — has remained relatively robust and constant when adjusted for inflation, and Berkeley’s endowment has grown to about $2.5 billion as of FY 2006. However, during the same period, the endowments at our private peer institutions exploded. For example, Harvard’s endowment reached about $30 billion, Stanford’s about $14 billion.
When it comes to retaining and recruiting top professors, the enormous endowments of our private peers give them a huge competitive advantage — an ability to offer higher salaries, more-generous compensation packages, and greater research funding.
Berkeley is proud of being a publicly supported university as well as one of the world’s great teaching and research institutions. To preserve this legacy of public excellence for future generations, Berkeley will need to rely on the continued commitment of the State of California and, at the same time, aggressively build its endowment. Increasing the number of endowed chairs across the campus is essential to sustain the long-term preeminence of our faculty — and our University.
How will the Hewlett Challenge support Berkeley’s across-the-board excellence in teaching and research? Even among its prestigious peer institutions, Berkeley stands apart for its comprehensive excellence — high academic distinction spanning the physical and biological sciences, mathematics, engineering, social sciences, arts & humanities, and the professions. This combination of “depth and breadth” makes Berkeley an exceptionally vital and creative environment for teaching and research. The Hewlett Challenge will strengthen Berkeley’s depth and breadth by providing significant funding to maintain the high quality of our faculty and our graduate students across the campus. The 80 endowed chairs that the Challenge will produce will support faculty excellence in all of the University’s 14 schools and colleges; the 20 distinguished endowed chairs will advance Berkeley’s capacity — crucial to cutting-edge work — for multidisciplinary teaching and research.
What incentives will the Hewlett Challenge give to top professors to come to Berkeley or remain here? Endowed chairs created under the Hewlett Challenge will give the Chancellor and the deans of the schools and colleges the ability to develop innovative retention and recruitment packages that provide powerful incentives. These include more-competitive salaries; greater fellowship support to attract the best graduate students; and discretionary funding for creative teaching and research initiatives. These endowed chairs will give the campus a new source of stable funding, allowing Berkeley to compete for the most-talented teachers and researchers.
What is an endowed chair? An endowed chair is a fund established with a private donation that creates an endowment that is invested in perpetuity to provide stable financial support for faculty. Appointment to an endowed chair is a mark of academic distinction for a professor. Typically named for the donor, endowed chairs offer philanthropists the opportunity to provide support to a field of academic endeavor that is of particular interest to them.
First established in 16th-century Tudor England, the endowed chair derived from the practice of rewarding outstanding faculty achievement with an actual chair. Because chairs were at that time a rare luxury, they were treasured by the esteemed — and fortunate — professors who received them. Today, endowed faculty chairs support teaching and research and attract top professors. For Berkeley, which is home to 351 endowed chairs in such disparate fields as classics and insect biology, they play a critical role in sustaining the University’s comprehensive excellence. Berkeley’s long tradition of endowed chairs began with the Agassiz Professorship of Oriental Languages and Literature, established in 1872.
How will faculty chair holders be appointed, and for what period of time? Under the Hewlett Challenge, faculty will be appointed to endowed chairs based on their high distinction in teaching and research, and great potential to contribute to the University’s overall excellence. On the Berkeley campus, holders of endowed chairs are tenured faculty who typically are appointed for renewable five-year terms.
What level of funding is needed to establish an endowed chair or a distinguished endowed chair at Berkeley? As of July 1, 2006, endowed chairs at Berkeley can be established with a minimum gift of $2 million, and distinguished endowed chairs can be established with a minimum gift of $3 million. Endowed funds typically have a conservative annual payout of about five percent in order to protect the purchasing power of the endowment in perpetuity.
All endowed chairs established prior to July 1, 2006, will remain fully functioning endowed chairs in perpetuity. Distinguished professorships established prior to July 1, 2006, will likewise remain fully functioning in perpetuity, but they will be elevated to the status of distinguished endowed chairs.
How can faculty endowed chairs be established and named under the Hewlett Challenge? A gift to establish one of these chairs can take many forms — including an outright gift or a pledge to be paid over five years. Endowed chairs and distinguished endowed chairs may be named either for the donor or according to the donor’s wishes.
Please contact University Relations or the dean of the school, college, or program whose faculty you are interested in supporting to learn more about establishing an endowed chair or distinguished endowed chair.
What is the mission of the Hewlett Foundation? The Hewlett Foundation makes grants to address the most serious social and environmental problems facing society, where risk capital, responsibly invested, may make a difference over time. The Foundation places a high value on sustaining and improving institutions that make positive contributions to society. For UC Berkeley, the Hewlett Challenge represents a monumental investment in the future excellence of public higher education.
University of California, Berkeley
University Relations
2080 Addison Street
Berkeley, CA 94720-4200
510.642.1212
hewlettchallenge@berkeley.edu
